Episode 6 An emotionally unavailable parent, horror films and my journey out.

How our parents deal with their own emotions and how they teach us or don't teach us to deal with our own drastically affects our lives.
Emotional mastery and regulation are the gold standard and KEY for a life of success, peace, fulfillment, and joy. 
Story time with me as i journey through my own emotions, lack of teaching and finally breaking free in my thirties. 
I use movies as my guide. 

Learn more about me on instagram @bechloebeyou
OR 
on my website and blog
www.chloegrahammindsetcoach.com

Transcript

0:01

Hello, welcome to episode six a few days late, I just had quite a bit honour wasn't feeling myself over the weekend. So decided to wait until I was feeling better. Before I come on and record this latest episode, what are we going to talk about today we're going to we're going to talk about something that's kind of connected to the blog posts that I just read, just posted a few days ago. So all about our parents and how they are emotionally, and then how that can drive our own interpretation of emotions. And what I did with that in my life, I'll tell you a story of what I did, and how it totally stuffed me up for quite a long time before I managed to rewrite that through help through coaches and therapists and all that stuff. So let's get right into it. Okay, so I'm going to start off with what I grew up with, my father was actually emotionally unavailable. He didn't express anything apart from sort of anger and frustration, there was no understanding of asking how I was feeling, how my mom was feeling, how my sister was feeling, being able to process them in real time, teach me how to do that. And like, if any sort of conflict or confrontation came up, and it rarely did with my mom, then he would just walk out and leave the room kind of thing. And it was ignored. So not the greatest thing, you know, when not many of us have beautifully emotionally mature parents, because not many people in the world know how to regulate, Understand, Master their emotions. And for me, it's my life's work, it is the skill of all skills, you can't really do anything properly in life, if you can't master your emotions and harness them as well, when it's the right time. You know, it's not about make turning you into a robot. That's the opposite. It's about working with them. And so they work for you, not against you. And making sure you're living the full spectrum of emotions. Like, I feel like a lot of people can just get trapped in negative ones, worry anxiety, depression, anger, frustration, and I get stuck. And it just cycles through all of those. And then you never really get to experience the peace, clarity, excitement, fulfilment, satisfaction, happiness, joy, they're kind of left or they're rare, and you don't ground yourself when you feel them. So that then you can replicate that on a regular basis. So growing up with a father, and I don't blame him, by the way, because this is generational conditioning that just repeats itself. So if his parents were like that, then he would have learnt that. And that's what I love about the coaching industry today. And all of the stuff available on the internet and in books and podcasts, that it's there for us to learn. This was barely touched on when my my parents were growing up, you know, the field of psychology itself, just everything. It was just a side thing, not required to live daily life. And so yeah, generations came my, my father was not taught that and I'm feel sorry for him for that, and how much joy and peace that he missed out on. My mom was anxious. She couldn't speak up for herself. When it came to my dad saying nasty things to her and then that then I got mad at that subconsciously. I was a little kid. I didn't know what was happening. But I saw her kindness and inability to speak up as weak. And then I had anger towards my dad for just saying discipline not feeling close to him. And anger towards my mom and I pushed her away because I saw her as weak ad aka it's dangerous to be like my mum, because I didn't see any of the good stuff. I saw her only the bad stuff, which was she was pushed around by my dad emotionally and I did not want that for myself. So the stronger of the two look to be my dad, which was shut down your emotions. And the only ones that were shown occasionally were discipline, anger and stuff like that. though that's what I grew up with. I pushed away anything that was girly, because I saw that as weak. And I was bullied at school by girls. My sister was not friendly to me. So she was also a woman, I pushed that away. So I grew up with boys as friends. And I have a lot of male friends in my life now. Emotions and how I showed them, I didn't really show them I just kind of shut down, pushed everyone away, made sure I could look after myself, not rely on anyone, and try and be as sort of individual and just look after myself. Because No, I didn't believe that anyone could look after me. Or if I let anyone in, there was a potential of being hurt. So that kind of puts your body into a fight or flight or freeze response, chronic stress response as a kid, I was constantly on guard, scared and afraid. The earliest things I can kind of remember being scared of our we lived in a huge house with massive windows, and a big garden with lots of trees. And we'd have sort of foxes howling in the night that scared the crap out of me. And Narnia, the wolf in Narnia scared me. And I'd see it when I shut my eyes at night. And when I had to run down for dinner, we weren't allowed many lights on at all in the house. So I would have to put my head down and run at full pelt from my room down the stairs and not look out the window in case I saw something scary out there. Like a burglar, a man the image of the Narnia wolf or anything Gosh, and I, I don't can't remember weren't allowed to shut the curtains or why I don't know why. But yeah, it was just head down and run because I was petrified. The next memory I have about being scared was watch with some friends at school will watch the exorcise when I was about 13. Holy God, like I do believe in sort of a bigger energy that exists in this planet. I don't think it's sort of live die go into the earth. That's it eaten by worms. I do believe in a bigger energy, I do believe not so much in heaven and hell. But there, there is another presence that we don't understand. So watching The Exorcist seemed very, very real for me, very possible. And I don't know if I just didn't talk to my parents about it. But I was luckily at the time I was sleeping in a room with my sister because we were redoing the house. But I remember not sleeping for two weeks, and then nightmares for another two weeks after that. And that film affected me deeply. And it put me into a higher stress response. And I remember my just lying in bed as a kid with my heart beating out of my chest. And I had no idea how to calm myself down. No idea how to lower my heart rate, no idea how to talk to my parents, my parents wouldn't have known how to calm me down. It was just panic stations. I remember moving back to the room and it must have been a you know, six months a year later, and it was still there for me and my dad came in to say good night one night and he shook the bed and I had a metal frame bed. And that feeling of the shaking of the bed like The Exorcist, I remember it to this day, he only did it for a few seconds. But you know, taking the mickey out of me for being scared of that and then replicating that I got bolts of fear running through me. And then that kind of stayed with me into an adult and like even after I'd left home, because of the volatile relationships I still had with my family. That was the norm my chronic stress, fear flight, I'd run away a lot fight flight. And just panic was my norm. And even when I was away from them, it still felt like they could ring and shout at me at any time. But also unfortunately, whatever you grow up, you actually want to replicate in your adult life, even if it makes no sense whatsoever. Because your body and mind are used to a certain way of being and living. So if you're used to living in scared, fear, stress, panic. When you move away from it, if you don't know how to release it, you're actually going to want to recreate it. And how I did for me was I would watch scary films. I love them, not knowing why. But I loved them, because they were recreating the fear that I grown up with, and come to see as normal. And I was kind of teaching myself to be tough, and that I could handle it and I could watch them. The other thing I would do is if I did go and see my mom, and we watched a sad movie, and I'm sad, I just want to go back in time and give myself a big hug. But if we'd watch an emotional film that would make you cry. I didn't want to cry. emotion was bad. I almost wanted to make myself a robot. So I would have a lump in my throat. My mom would be on the sofa next to me crying, and I would be shouting at myself. Don't you dare cry Don't you cry this as a lesson be tough, be tough. Crying is for weaklings, crying is for weak people. And I would just be so proud of myself for not crying for shutting down all emotion. And I'd be angry at my mum for crying, not understanding at the time, but now I understand that it was petrified of being weak and vulnerable. And I didn't want to be like my mom. I didn't want to be weak and vulnerable. But then I remember one night staying at my mom's she was a way and she had this when my parents divorced, she had this beautiful little cottage in the middle of basically farmland. And I don't know why it was worse. But you know, it was one storey tall. So the bedroom was on the ground floor at the back. And I went went to bed one night by myself and I was surrounded by boxes. It was it was oh it should newly moved in. But it was better because I was alone there and I just wanted to be alone away from my flatmates hence why I'd gone there. But I was convinced a burglar was going to break in. absolutely convinced. And my heart rate was through the roof like those first weeks when I was 13 After watching the Exorcist, and the thinking back just like the adrenaline and cortisol that was throat flowing through my body. What was happening like that is dangerously bad. Like, like literally like you're being chased by lions sort of levels of anxiety and stuff. And that was created a self sustaining storm of panic and stress in my body that I created and then maintained through the scary films was if you watch scary films of people being murdered and burgled and ghosts and horror films, you're going to think that that's, you know, it fills your dreams. It's just thinks that your that's your norm. And I would add to that actually, I only really found this out recently, but if you're at a chronic state of stress, your startle response is really heightened. So anything makes you jump you know, any noises throughout life, whether you're sitting in the office, whether someone you know comes out of a shop and makes you jump when you're walking into it. Someone comes out of a toilet. If you're lying in bed at night, any job, any noise will make you jump out of your skin. That's your body being in fight or flight that's your body being in chronic stress, unable to relax and senses heightened. So that was me. And you also lose your appetite because your body actually wants to fight the intruder. So you lose your appetite. So unfortunately, it's not a good thing. You're not going to lose weight. You're just in chronic stress. shut down all of your organs. It's just getting ready. So no wonder sleep. It did not come to me. But then why else I watched was action movies. Jason Bourne. Obsessed wish I'd become a secret agent. And let me guess what? You can probably guess why? Because they were relying on this themselves. They were incredibly capable. They were almost like robots did not show emotion. And no, they note they needed no one in the world. They were strong, capable, independent. And sadly enough invisible, because that's what I wanted to be for so much of my life. The weird. ying yang of desperately wanted to be loved and loved and seen, but at the same time wanting to hide from the world. My constant running from house to house, constant flat moving constantly wanting to be a secret agent because they could just hide and not be seen. For that happens sometimes when we're a mess, we want to opposite things, because and they don't make sense at the time. None of it does. But that's where I was. And then there seemed to be a sort of a fourth aspect to it, where actually my body obviously responded, and I needed to feel emotions. And I would only do this by myself, it was never watching with anyone else. It was only when I was home alone or staying at one of my parents houses and no one was there. But obviously, my body needed a release. And it's like a pressure cooker or a boiling kettle, or Breanna Weiss talks about it as like, your body is a force it, you know, there's lots of force, it's in your body, and you're filling up with water. And if you close them off, like, close off the taps and your eyes and don't cry, the pressure builds and builds and builds and builds, and then you haven't got a release. I wasn't exercising, I had no release to this rage, fear, frustration. So film seemed to be my outlet. I would sit on the sofa with nursing, a lot of wine. And I would watch the films that would make me cry, because obviously I needed to, and they were always the ones that someone sacrificed themselves for others or died. Because I felt I still felt at this time, because of all the rage and rejection and everything circling through me that I was evil. There was something wrong with me and I was evil to my core. And I couldn't tell anyone, even though there's no evidence I'd done anything evil. These were clearly the thoughts in my mind that was saying, you are an evil, nasty, selfish person. And you hate your life. You hate the world you hate and resent and jealous. That was the message I would say to myself every day. So when I'm watching these films of like Armageddon, where Bruce Willis at the end goes, No, I'm going to save your Ben Affleck's life. So you can be with my daughter I I'm older I want to sacrifice myself. Or when Clive Owen in a single man when he was beyond help with grief for the loss of his partner, or Braveheart, Mel Gibson actually rewatch that last night where he he sacrifices himself for a cause and the loss of his wife and how much he loved her. Gladiator and him sacrificing his life for a cause. I would watch them and bawl my eyes out. Drinking lots of wine. Even being naughty and smoking a cigarette. All of the naughty things just a release. Just sit on the doorstep thinking. That's love. That's living. I saw a quote I think last night, it was from Braveheart. Every man dies not every man lives. And I just thought these are the films that obviously were trying to shake me alive I was trying to release the emotion trying to live but my conditioning my hatred for myself and my life the cycle of my life just wouldn't let me free I was locked in a cage of my own making. Yeah, I grew up in the childhood make made the frames but I painted it I filled it in and I made that cage myself. So how did like how did I start to come out of all of this? I started to learn that the strength in the feminine and I started to believe that I had my own version of feminine. And I learned that kindness isn't weak. And I learned that I am a woman I'm not a man. That sounds silly saying that but I was just thinking about the quote Sarah Jessica Parker said trying to be a man is a waste of a woman. And I think I was trying to be there because I saw men as strong and women as weak from what I've grown up with, and now The more I'm kind to myself, I talked about it in my blog, the more well released through therapy, the fact that I wasn't actually evil. I just had some poor programming that then got accelerated in the worst way possible for how I thought about myself that the feminine is this beautiful thing of empathy, collaboration, intuition, compassion, caring, inclusion, connecting and all of that stuff, where Forbes actually lists that as the top qualities needed for being a CEO. And it's actually not finding a feminine, it's finding you're human. We're not meant to be robots. We're not meant to just look after ourselves. And we're not meant to live filled with hatred, frustration, fear, regret, jealousy, resentment to our parents, and why they weren't emotionally healthy and mature, to guide us in how to live our life and how to be an adult. But I just just really want you to take home this message and be like, be careful what you're watching. It might just be helping sustain that stress, chronic stress and fear cycle, and listen to happy music, listen to inspirational podcasts, and people listen to the stuff that makes you be filled with hope, positivity. Peace. So let's start getting ourselves out of this chronic stress cycle chronic fear. And it took me a few years, but it was the best thing I ever did. So there's a bit of a strange way of telling a story. But films were a huge part of my life for a long time and it was the only way I can kind of explain how badly my life was consumed by stress and fear. So I'll finish there. Until next week, let let's start loving ourselves. Let's start being kind to ourselves. Let's break free of this chronic stress. If you want help with this, if you want to go into your stories, I'm here. message me on Instagram be Chloe B. You are have a look at my website, Chloe Graham mindset coach, and we can start changing the cycle, healing the trauma, changing the emotions you feel on a daily basis and it's the best thing you can do for yourself. Let's start each day and end each day saying I am proud of you babe, to ourselves and to others. Thank you